Saturday, 29 November 2014

How To Recover Mailbox From Recovery Storage Group In Exchange Server 2007

The Recovery Storage Group (RSG) introduced way back in Microsoft Exchange 2003 has been considerably improved in Exchange 2007. Unlike previous versions of Exchange, users no longer require an Active Directory recovery to restore items to mailboxes because of RSG. This has improved the interface of Exchange 2007 radically and has created the competency to use power shell commands for recovery.

Basically, RSG refers to a particular administrative storage group that acknowledges a user to mount a second copy of the mailbox database of Exchange server. This managerial feature technically helps in restoring the mailboxes.

The post guides the user to a step-by-step procedure to recover the mailboxes of Exchange 2007 by using RSG with Exchange Management Console and Exchange Management Shell.

For creating Recovery Storage Group on Exchange Management Shell, run the commands given below

Step 2: Creating a Recovery Database for RSG

Now, for creating a Recovery Database for RSG users can run the following command in the Exchange Management Shell,

Step 3: Restoring the Mailbox of Exchange 2007 from Backup

After creating a Recovery database for the RSG, users can start with the process of restoring the mailbox from the backup. The detail of the process is given below:

Select Backup then click on the tab “Job Setup” to create new restore job and select the data which is to be restored.

After selecting the data to be restored, click on the tab “Run Now” present at the bottom-left corner.

Step:3 Now select the option “Microsoft Exchange Redirection” present in the left side of the pane. Under the section of “Microsoft Exchange Redirection” check the option, “Redirect Exchange sets.”

Check the box against the option "Redirect using VSS snapshot provider". Select the option” Redirect to Recovery Storage Group (RSG) (Exchange 2007 only)". After that click on “Run Now” tab located at the bottom and start with the process of restoration.

Now, select the Storage Group from which the data is to be restored. Then select ‘Next’.

Under the section of system folder and checkpoint file folder, select the location of the original storage group

On successful completion of creation of Recovery Storage Group, a window will appear which shows the confirmation message.

Step2: Restoring Mailbox from Backup

Now open Backup and select the Recovery Storage Group under the Microsoft Information Store

Select the option “Microsoft Exchange Redirection” located on the left side pane. Then under the section of “Microsoft Exchange Redirection” select the option “Redirect Exchange sets.”

Check the box against the option "Redirect using VSS snapshot provider" along with the option “Redirect to Recovery Storage Group (RSG) (Exchange 2007 only)”. After that hit on the tab “Run Now.”

How to Access the Database?

Once the mentioned process is done completely, users can execute any of the steps to open the database.
If any emails are found to be missing from RSG then merge it with the production mailbox. This will restore the missing emails automatically.

One can employ the command Restore-Mailbox which copies the database from RSG on any live Exchange 2007 to another server. The Restore-Mailbox command can work with mailboxes which are disconnected from RSG as data source.

Note: To run the Restore-Mailbox command, a user needs to be granted the following rights

The right from local administrators group and Administrator role of Server for both the target and source servers

Both source and the recovered databases must belong to the same Exchange 2007 server

Run the following command:

If both the commands of Exchange Management Shell and Exchange Management Console do not work out successfully in recovering the database form Recovery Storage Group of Exchange 2007 server. In such a case, Exchange Recovery tool provides complete proficiency to repair EDB database & convert into PST keeping all the key elements of the mails intact.